


Snap, Crackle, Pop

by incurableinsanity



Series: A Full Resume [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cooking, Food, Gen, Humor, Pre-Avengers (2012), Strike Team Delta, frustrated Coulson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 06:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4655730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incurableinsanity/pseuds/incurableinsanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Coulson tries to teach Clint and Natasha how to cook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snap, Crackle, Pop

**Author's Note:**

> This story references "One, Two, Step" as it takes place after its first part, but the only thing you need to know is that Coulson taught Clint and Natasha the Foxtrot against their will for a mission.

When a new mission file lands on Coulson’s desk, he reads it immediately. It’s not particularly thick, but it’s fairly informative. It’s undercover, so Natasha and Clint are the more obvious choices for this.

Coulson finds that this mission should be a relatively simple one. Strike Team Delta has been together for a little over two years, and a simple undercover mission should be easy.

Apparently it’s not.

“You can’t cook.” Coulson says, staring incredulously at Clint. Clint shrugs.

“I eat a lot of takeout,” He answers. “And cafeteria food. There was no need to cook.” Okay. Okay, fine. This is Clint Barton here. That seems like him. Okay. Still–

“And you?” Coulson glances at Natasha hopefully. Surely, she must know how to cook a simple meal –

Natasha stares back blankly. Coulson puts his face in his hands. This is his life.

“Really?” He hears Clint ask. There’s no reply, so he assumes she shrugs. “Thought you were the type to eat self-cooked food.”

“There are several good takeout places in any given place, at any given time,” Natasha tells him and Clint makes an agreeing noise. Oh god.

Coulson’s got no clue how these two made it this far.

“Is there anything you two can cook?” He pleads.

“Pancakes,” Natasha says.

“Cereal,” Clint says at the same time.

“You don’t _cook_ cereal.” Natasha frowns.

“Then clearly you’re doing it wrong.”

Coulson works with children. Children with skills of deadly assassins.

“Look, why does it matter?” Clint turns back to Coulson. Right. Back on track. He can handle this. He isn’t Fury’s good eye for nothing.

“This is an undercover mission; one with covers as chefs in the mark’s restaurant. I need you two to be able keep up in the kitchen.”

“Why can’t we – I dunno – be critics or Natasha could romance the guy or something that’s not as stupid as this.”

Natasha snorts. He’s not sure, but he thinks she’s silently laughing at him. Any day where the two of them gang up on him is going to be a long one. Fantastic.

“Clint,” Coulson sighs. “Just get in the kitchen please.”

Clint huffily marches to the kitchen, “Okay, but I’m not making you a sandwich.”

He has a bad feeling about this.

 

 

 

Coulson isn’t sure this was a good idea.

Something easy should have been the best thing to start with.

He’s wrong.

“Clint, it’s burning,” He says, but Clint ignores him, staring moodily at the pan of eggs. The smoke is wafting up, and any second now the fire alarm will be going off.

“Natasha,” He calls, but Natasha’s not even in the room, her pan left unsupervised. The flame’s off, and in it sits a single egg, uncracked.

Coulson wants to scream.

 

 

 

“The smoke means I’m doing it right,” Clint finally tells him when he gets Clint to turn on his hearing aids. “It means it’s cooking.”

“No, it means that it’s burning. Which is bad.” Coulson explains.

Clint snorts, and eats the charred egg straight-faced, out of spite.

Coulson sighs.

 

 

 

Natasha reappears with a perfectly cooked egg on a plate, and sits at the table.

“Where did you get that?” Coulson asks her.

“I cooked it,” She answers, and he looks at her blankly. She raises an eyebrow. Five minutes later, Sitwell calls, telling Coulson that stealing his breakfast isn’t funny and could he please control his assassins?

Coulson runs his hands over his face. The two _highly-trained assassins_ continue to eat their meals in stony silence. This is payback for the foxtrot thing, he knows it.

 

 

 

Maybe eggs aren’t a good place to start. Natasha can cook pancakes, maybe she can teach Clint how to do it. Learning off each other can work out better since they are together in this.

Coulson stands back to watch the two of them make the food, and then promptly wants to cry because _Clint is eating the batter_. Not just small bites but spoonfuls and Natasha does nothing to stop him.

“Clint, that is for cooking, not for eating.”

“It’s all gonna get eaten eventually,” Clint informs him and Natasha quirks a quick smile.

“I don’t see the problem,” She tells Coulson, flipping a pancake. “He’s got a point.”

“The point is that you don’t serve pancake batter.”

They both ignore him.

 

 

 

Coulson calls for a break, and decides that he can come back later, once he finishes some paperwork and comes up with a better idea than what he’s got. He also needs a break from their antics before he actually breaks composure.

He has to remain composed here. He has a reputation to maintain no matter what the other two-thirds of team Delta have to say about it.

“Is there any particular reason,” Fury begins when Coulson answers the ringing phone an hour later, “that Barton and Romanov are currently hi-jacking supplies from the cafeteria or should I file that under ‘Things I Shouldn’t Question about Barton and Romanov’?”

Coulson pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales heavily. “We’re prepping for the next mission, and they’re learning how to cook.”

Predictably, Fury hangs up without a word. Fury’s probably just happy that they aren’t terrorizing other agents.

 

 

 

As it turns out, both can actually do knife work, but Coulson supposes he should have known that. They fly through items like butter, neatly chopped, parred, or sliced as needed. So at least there’s that. Though Natasha keeps getting dangerously close to just throwing things in the air and slicing them that way.

On the other hand, Natasha can’t flip things in a pan worth shit, while Clint can do it with terrifying accuracy and increased showman’s tricks that only get more elaborate the more time he spends doing it. At one point, a piece of chicken bounces off four surfaces before landing back in the pan.

Of course, this leads to his food charring and smoking again. Clint, predictably, complains that it’s fine and eats it just to annoy him. Natasha, siding with Clint, takes several bites of it as well.

It bothers him that it actually works.

 

 

 

Clint calls a break for himself less than an hour later, when all the food he ate finally makes him sick. He collapses into the couch with a groan and falls asleep.

Natasha claims perfect health because of her Russian blood. Coulson wisely doesn’t touch the topic.

 

 

 

With Clint out for the count for the time being, Coulson focuses on Natasha. It turns out she does better with guidelines rather than full out instructions, of what she should do rather than what she has to. Apparently, these are two different things. Still, Coulson isn’t going to complain. He’ll take what he can get at this point.

Either way, it leads to her being able to cook a simple meal that Coulson safely eats for dinner.

However, the way she keeps watching him makes him a little worried.

(He has to wash his mouth out five minutes later after eating the hot sauce she “seasoned” the rice with.)

 

 

 

Clint makes a reappearance halfway through Natasha frying some bacon (they are apparently back to breakfast foods), and promptly burns his fingers stealing some of the food from the pan.

“Ow, shit!” Clint says, sticking his fingers in his mouth. Natasha smirks, but does hand a piece to Clint with the tongs. Clint bites it in half.

“Natasha, those aren’t all that done –” Coulson starts and then runs his hands over his face.

Payback. It has to be.

Natasha finishes the bacon, and Clint sets himself up to cook what Coulson hopes to be French toast.

It’s simple enough: coat the bread in egg yolk, and cook. Simple. Easy.

Clint actually manages well enough for the first few pieces, until he gets bored with how long it takes to do each piece individually. So he starts stacking four or five at a time. Then he cranks up the heat.

Coulson watches in horror as the pan starts overflowing with egg-soggy bread as Clint tosses in more and more. One falls onto the floor. Natasha stops one by way of throwing knife, pinning it to the wall. Clint keeps going, stubbornly trying to fit more into the pan. One nearly falls into the flame, just barely saved by Coulson knocking it away.

“Clint–”

“It’s faster this way!”

Natasha ends up pinning seven pieces of bread to the wall.

 

 

 

“Look, I know you two are –” _unteachable, a pain in the ass, complete children_ “– having difficulty learning how to cook, but are you two actually trying?”

Clint and Natasha give him looks of complete innocence.

Coulson stares.

Clint asks, “Do you want me to try cooking French toast again?”

He walks out to the sound of his agents’ cackling.

 

 

 

Three hours later, Coulson changes the op so that they are food critics instead.

Clint burns three eggs in celebration.

(Two months later, Fury tasks Maria Hill with teaching Strike Team Delta how to cook. Natasha and Clint learn swiftly, and Coulson’s theory is confirmed – it was definitely payback.)

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://torii-storii.tumblr.com/)


End file.
